Network Download Speeds Drops When Downloading on Steam

Aeradom

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Jul 31, 2011
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I'm not honestly sure where to put this question, though I suppose the fact that this is a steam only problem I might go there. Of course, with Steam's legendary customer service, I'm probably better off waiting for the reckoning. At any rate, I'm still curious about what causes this so I'll ask here.

The issue I'm having is that when I'm downloading a game on Steam, my internet speed tanks. More specifically, my ability to download games on that platform. At first, I thought it might be an issue with the modem or router. Then by chance, I noticed that when I paused the download on Steam, my internet speed returned to normal. To verify, I started the download again, and sure enough the speed dropped. To be clear, this isn't just my download speed in steam; this is no matter what else I'm doing on the computer whether it be watching Youtube, downloading something else or testing the internet speed.

So yeah I'm a bit stumped, anyone has an idea what's going on? I already tried switching download servers on Steam and stopping it from throttling, but no effect. Plus, that doesn't explain how my internet is being affected outside of Steam.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
When talking about downloading speeds, numbers are useful

What type of service is it? Cable, DSL, fiber, other?
What do you pay the ISP for?
What performance numbers do you get when testing at speedtest.net?
What performance numbers do you see from Steam?
 

Aeradom

Distinguished
Jul 31, 2011
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18,680


Cable internet with max DL speed of 25 Mb/s. The moment I click download in steam it goes to around 0.5 Mb/s and then returns to 25 Mb/s when I stop downloading on Steam. And to be clear, I can download things like Origin from my browser without the same effect. I can also download mods from the Nexus, again no issue there.
 

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